Building Organizational Capacity
As organizations look to demonstrate program impact and develop scalable models, it is vital that they build their organizations alongside their programs. Strong organizations provide the platform that programs need to be evaluated, refined, and grown.
In our experience, building organizational capacity can be achieved by focusing on three key dimensions:
- Funding and sustainability: how will the organization access reliable and renewable sources of capital, and drive down costs per outcome, over time?
- Growth strategy: how will organizations think strategically about how and where to scale?
- Organizational effectiveness: how will organizations hire the right people, develop efficient processes and systems, create the optimal structure, and build a strong culture?
During the past decade, an increasing number of funders have begun to pair traditional program support with capacity-building grants (or direct capacity-building assistance). They have also begun to support the development of tools and resources that nonprofits could use to diagnose their current state and identify areas for improvement. (Bridgespan's online Learning Centers, Funding the Mission, Developing Strategy, and Building the Organization, may help organizations navigate these issues.)
The following resources provide an overview of the capacity-building needs, channels, and providers in the sector today.
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Featured Tools and Frameworks Knowledge from the Field |
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